Chris Kluwe’s Hypocrisy

It’s time to talk about Chris Kluwe. Recently his fight with the Vikings got fiercer, and yesterday we find out Mike Priefer (The Bigot Kluwe talked about in his Deadspin slam bit) is suspended for 3 games without pay and must take sensitivity classes. So Kluwe was right! Justice has been served!

Then we find out Kluwe cracked jokes at another coach who went to Penn State, by cutting a hole in his pants and pretending to be a Sandusky victim. Possibly multiple times. That’s when the real fun started. Soon enough he was on twitter ranting and sticking his foot in his mouth, claiming that lot of players made Sandusky jokes, so don’t judge him you guys everyone was being insensitive. Kluwe finally exposed himself as a hypocrite. He may have done the right thing and completely tanked his own reputation in the process.

I’ve been torn on my opinion of Kluwe as a person for a long time. On one hand, he’s doing good things. He’s helped bring the fight for LGBT rights to football, and he’s helped expose some of the toxic locker room culture that pervades the NFL. On the other hand, he’s an immature and obnoxious attention seeking twat who is hard to like when he starts going off.

Today it’s clear that much of this fight is for the attention. Something about it always rubbed me the wrong way, but now I’ve got something tangible to hold onto. His profane letter to the minister in defense of Brendon Ayanbadejo was kind of opportunistic, but I wasn’t bothered by it too much. I think he wrote it to be funny, but it blew up on him so he adopted the cause. Whatever, it’s a good cause, if he can help then good for him. I think his letter was immature, but I don’t think he ever meant it not to be, he made it purposefully outrageous. I found his tone stupid, but only because I’m also an internet veteran, and most of us find that sort of talk stupid by now. however it was clear the rest of the world wasn’t quite so exposed as the likes of me, and they were enthralled with his style. If it got people talking, and it got attention to the good causes, then maybe the stupid lulz speak was okay.

But then after his fame started to fade a bit, and he got cut from the Raiders…suddenly out he comes with a Deadspin assassination piece, completely slamming the Vikings. It felt…off. It felt like he waited for his career to officially be pretty much dead to jump back into the spotlight and become relevant again. When the Vikings kept mum, he started publicly calling them out. Today, that fight of his was won, but info on him came out at the same time, and instead of handling it like a mature human being he took to twitter and got on his high horse. I’d imagine his lawyer, who tried to keep the info under wraps, isn’t very happy about him mouthing off.

In his twitter, he defends his actions with the Sandusky jokes as “Over half the team did it for over a month, including asking him if he “raped any little boys lately,” repeatedly, in front of coaches.”

because other people doing it too makes it okay, is that it Kluwe? That is a weak defense.

Then he mentions “Oooh, shall we talk about the time two very well known Vikings players were caught in a compromising situation with an underage girl?”

Does anyone know what situation he is referring to? I don’t remember hearing about this. If this happened, did he bring the issue to the authorities? Did he make it public? Did he do the right thing with the information he knew? Of course not, he was still on the team then. He had no reason to do the right thing then. he had no reason to be the good person. But now that his career is over, it’s cool to slam some folks. Being afraid of the hand that feeds you is one thing, proclaiming yourself morally superior while doing things like this makes you a hypocrite.

But the big deal here is that Kluwe felt it was okay to make child rape jokes to give a coach a hard time. It’s okay to not bring up and do the right thing when two players were caught with an underage girl. But making homophobic jokes is worth trying to ruin someone’s career for? It just feels hypocritical. It doesn’t matter if you think Preifer’s jokes and Kluwe’s jokes were both funny, the fact that Kluwe made a huge stink about one while participating in another shows that his values are not where he proclaims them to be. he does not believe fully in his cause, and this whole thing was him being bitter about getting cut and deciding to take everyone down. Kluwe needs to grow up and actually try to be the person he thinks he is.

That sounds like something a 14yr old on 4chan would say when trying to sound smart.

Remember his Deadspin piece? Here’s a quote:

One of the main coaching points I’ve heard throughout my entire life is, “How you respond to difficult situations defines your character,” and I think it’s a good saying.

So Kluwe responds to difficult situations for his coach by making child rape jokes. He responds to news that teammates are with underage girls by keeping it mum for his own sake. He responds to the Vikings accusations today by going on an immature twitter rant likely against any legal advice. Kluwe has defined his character alright.

This whole ordeal has hurt his credibility. If he wanted to keep his teammates out of this, his twitter rant just betrayed that ideal and now everyone is wondering what that underage thing is about. He basically threw them under the bus by mentioning it vaguely. So much for that ideal. It also makes me wonder about the whole thing up to this point. Weve had no reason to doubt Kluwe’s claims, but his actions tonight might even throw his release into a new light. Was it about Stats? Probably not. Was it about youth and salary cap concerns? Seems valid enough, but was it because he supported gay rights very publicly or was it because he was obnoxious about it? Frankly now I’m wondering about Priefer. Maybe he really is a bigot. Or maybe he was just giving Kluwe a hard time. This story along with the Incognito story has shown how locker room culture can be very, very politically incorrect. Maybe Priefer was just trying to mess with Kluwe, and Kluwe took it the wrong way, or got self righteous, and made a big stink which caused him to be viewed as a distraction. I don’t want to defend someone who joked about nuking all gay people. I don’t. That statement and others were disgusting. But if it’s okay to ask a coach if he “raped any children today” in the NFL’s locker room culture, it makes me really wonder how sincere Priefer was in the first place. All Kluwe had to do was shut up, wait and make an official statement, and maybe an apology for his past jokes. Instead he took to twitter, threw teammates under a bus, and defended his jokes with “well everyone was doing it”. That is not the mature way to handle this.

Take a page from Jon Martin. When Incognito pushed back he stayed quiet, he let Incognito plead his case and he even got turned on for a while, but then he came out with the results of the investigation and Incognito was left alone, crying himself to sleep.

“I also hope that Leslie Frazier and Rick Spielman take a good look in the mirror and ask themselves if they are the people they truly profess themselves to be.”

I hope you do too, Kluwe. You took a big responsibility onto your shoulders. A good fight, a worthwhile fight. You’ve done some good things. People are counting on you. They don’t need a drama queen who talks in dated internet memes, they need the person you pretend to be. It’s time to be that person. I really want to go back to thinking you’re cool. I want to go back to liking you. I want LGBT rights to have a good football spokesman because lord knows football needs it. This is all up to how you act as this fight presses on. Don’t proclaim the moral high ground, earn it with your actions. No one has really doubted you about your accusations about Priefer and the Vikings until now. People are mad at you now because of how you are carrying yourself, for what it says about who you are and what you might really be doing. You look petty. Your unprofessional attitude is your biggest enemy right now. It’s time to grow up, and do the right thing.

Discussion (23) ¬

One of the Deadspin guys (Samer Kalaf) mentioned an old rumor they had printed involving Tarvaris Jackson and Sidney Rice “getting involved” with some local high school girls. That might be what Kluwe’s referring to.

Regardless, I basically agree with everything you said here regarding the guy. Just because he happens to be right regarding Gay Rights doesn’t mean he isn’t also an asshole.

A rumor, which, if memory serves, ended up being false and deleted from their website. If that is the case the Kluwe is digging up false information from six years ago. If that’s not the case – which it very well might not be considering Darren Sharper was one of his teammates – then he’s been withholding information about what is heavily implied to be two adults having sex with a minor, which is even more morally bankrupt.

I’ve always disagreed that he was fired for his activism, but I still liked Kluwe until now. This…just shut the hell up and enjoy your goddamn retirement. The more this goes on, the more I believe Blair Walsh saying you weren’t interested in football and just liked the spotlight.

His deadspin articles show that he clearly is an asshole. He would fit in with the stereotypical 4chan user. He uses unnecessary swear words for ‘shock value’ and is obsessed with video games. It does not surprise me that he would use the Penn State situation to make more ‘jokes’ for their ‘shock’ value.

Don’t you dare associate /sp/ with this attention whoring nerd. I know he has a feud with Deadspin, but /sp/ sees the truth that Kluwe and Deadspin are identical: click baiting, controversy-causing sorry excuses for human beings who are more concerned with pseudo-fame in Kluwe’s case, and clicks in Deadpsin’a case. Deadspin is objectively the worst sports site, and Kluwe would fit in perfectly as a writer there, whether people want to realize that or not.

I think the last thing gays need to help people respect them more, is their spokesperson, on the biggest stage in the American sporting world, to be an immature brat. Gays don’t even need a straight person to speak for their rights, it’s Michael Sam’s job. He should show the world that gays aren’t bad and are just regular people just like the rest of us.
The thing is though, in my opinion, I really don’t care about gays. Who you like isn’t a question for me, it’s what your personality is. I remember one kid at my school that I hated. He was obnoxious and annoying. Come to find out he was gay. Did that make me hate him more? No and it didn’t make me like him more either. If Michael Sam turns out to have beaten up people, he should be berated and mocked at by the media. It doesn’t matter that he’s gay, he’s a terrible person.
Of course this is just a hypothetical situation and Michael Sam has no history of such things (at least yet), but basically what I’m saying is that, A: Chris Kluwe is an idiot and B: Being gay shouldn’t matter in life, the person that you are, should

So glad to see someone shares my views on Kluwe. The adult way to respond would be to walk out of the meeting where the contents were made and call the NFL HQ. Let the pros deal with it. Instead he waited, then backstabbed his former team at his convenience. As a Vikings fan my love has turned to distaste. He isn’t a hero outing a poisonous coach, he’s a child who can’t stand not getting attention.

Also note only 1 tweet today- his lawyer probably called him and had a fit.

Agree with pretty much everything you said Dave, but if I can chime in on one particular part: “Was it about Stats? Probably not.”

Kluwe’s stats are lesser than those of Jeff Locke, his Minnesota replacement, and Marquette King, the player he failed to beat out in Oakland. Respectively, average distance of 45 vs. 44.2 and 48.9, 3,237 yards overall vs. 3,316 and 4,107, 18 punts inside the 20 vs. 23 each, net average of 39.7 vs. 39.9 and 41.1, etc., etc. On top of that, Kluwe was 32 years old, and they were both in their first years starting(King sat his rookie year behind Lechler), so while they both were just scratching the surface, Kluwe likely could only go downward. Then there’s the fact that Kluwe was going to make nearly four times as much as Locke’s $450k rookie deal. Cap space comes at a premium, especially when you have a running back that’s making around $14m.

I always figured, to an extent, that Kluwe’s activism factored into it. Homophobic jackasses pay with the same dollars as you or me, and while I don’t think many people became Viking fans because of Kluwe, I would not be surprised if some homophobic jackasses stopped supporting them because of him. The only thing teams care more about than winning is making money. But I still think that the majority of it was because Kluwe was on the downturn of his career, had just had knee surgery, and was replaced by younger, cheaper players that looked as good if not better.

I’d like to think that all of Kluwe’s ranting is going to help the Vikings. I say keep ranting Chris because in the long run you’ll ruin more than your reputation. Hopefully when this is over(and let it be soon) he will go crawl in a corner and cry, feeling sorry for himself. He could also ask himself where he went wrong,but he probably will never figure it out.

Hit it on the head. He’s an attention-loving, narcissistic twat whose genuine sincerity is now questionable. I’m not even convinced the original Priefer joke was as bad as he made it out to be–could be he was just saying some shock value stuff just to get Kluwe to focus back on practice. Not exactly tasteful, but hardly evil.

Chris Kluwe, like most NFL players, is attention-seeking and opportunistic in such endeavors. He just happens to be able to read at an 11th grade level and isn’t a raging religious bigot.

That being said, in my book a communal joke about a scandal ≠ unprovoked suggestion of nuclear holocaust of an entire class of human. I think too many people are superimposing Tim Tebow’s lily-white virgin morality onto their expectation of what they believe Kluwe *should be* given that he previously opened his mouth in support of gay rights. Advocates aren’t always heroes.

I honestly believe that Kluwe is using his lawsuit (which is almost certainly frivolous) to just air the Vikings dirty laundry in a public forum to keep himself relevant. In the process of this entirely self-serving act, he may accidentally force the league’s hand in issues that it has either suppressed or ignored over the years in a manner that improves the culture or environment of the NFL. Or he’s completely full of shit and will be shown as such in court, in which case we get to laugh at him and remind ourselves of why we don’t immediately rush to crown punters as the professional sports voice of a movement.

Ok so I was a senior on the UCLA football team when Kluwe was a freshman and in the year I spent in proximity to the guy I can’t recall Chris ever stringing three syllables together at any given time. He was a quiet, almost creepy kid. The impression I get from his current incarnation is that he’s a bookwormy nerd who happened to be good at something in the athletic realm and has since discovered a way to use his nerdy wit and his new found platform to be seen and heard. I dont believe he is a sincere advocate for gay rights because, well, why would he be? Honestly, what’s his investment in this? I seem to recall hearing he has a close relative who’s homosexual but so what? That’s almost like saying you have a black friend, not such a unique club to be in anymore. I have always been proud to see fellow Bruins succeeding at the highest level and that feeling certainly applied to Chris but at this point I am sincerely glad to see his soapbox disappearing from beneath him. I suppose we can be happy that his particular brand of sociopathy (think I made that word up) is manifesting it’s self this way because, frankly, his is the type of personality we’ve become accustomed to of late seeking attention and notariaty in much more extreme fashion.